The Hungarian-Turkish Friendship Park is a public park in Szigetvár, southwestern Hungary, dedicated in memorial to the Battle of Szigetvár fought in 1566 between the Ottoman army and the Croatian-Hungarian defenders of the Szigetvár Castle. The park was established in 1994 and opened jointly by Hungarian and Turkish high officials.BackgroundLeading his army in person, Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent besieged Szigetvár Castle in Baranya (near the present Hungarian/Croatian border) with his military force of more than 80,000 soldiers in the summer of 1566. The fortification blocked his way westwards towards Vienna on his second attempt to capture the capital of Habsburg Austria. The battle lasted from August 6 till September 8, while the castle was defended by greatly outnumbered, some 2,500 Croatian and Hungarian soldiers of the Croatian nobleman Nikola Šubić Zrinski, or Miklós Zrínyi as known in Hungarian.On September 6, Sultan Suleiman unexpectedly died of natural causes at the age of 72 in his big imperial tent beside the battlefield. While his death was kept secret at great effort, Ottoman Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, the acting operational commander, continued to lead the battle. Shortly after Suleiman's death, Zrinski was killed in action during the final battle, and the castle fell into the hands of the Ottomans. The Ottomans cancelled the Vienna campaign and the troops returned home without knowing about the death of their ruler.